There was precious little Christmas spirit at the Scottish Football Association in 1888. Justice was meted out swiftly to two players from Third Lanark and Abercorn who traded blows on the pitch, and got a criminal record into the bargain. It was a sorry end to an epic Scottish Cup clash between two of Scotland's strongest sides, Third Lanark and Abercorn, who met in the fifth round of the cup. Thirds won 5-4 on 24 November but the Paisley side protested to the SFA that the game had finished in darkness, and were granted a replay. On 8 December the sides drew 2-2, and a week later it was again 2-2. The tie therefore went to a fourth match, played at neutral Ibrox on 22 December. This time Thirds came out on top, winning 3-1, but the notable feature of the game came just before the end, described in the press as 'a somewhat unseemly incident':Lochhead of the Volunteers and Buchanan of the Abercorn engaged in a stand-up fight, the result being one black eye in favour of the Third man. Buchanan expressed great annoyance at his 'facial decoration', remarking that it looked bad at this season of the year. For that little bit of by-play - which was very much appreciated by a portion of the crowd - both players were ordered off the field, and in all probability will be suspended by the Association on Tuesday evening. Astonishingly enough, there was indeed an SFA meeting on Tuesday, Christmas Day, although 'there was a general regret that the members should have been called together on Christmas night, and an attempt was made to get through the business quickly'. A variety of business included the disciplinary issue of the cup-tie: Buchanan and Lochhead, who indulged in a 'free fight' last Saturday in the match, Abercorn v Third Lanark, were suspended for a month. The latter wrote apologising and, though the Association thanked him for his letter, they were sorry to come to the conclusion that he ought to be punished in the manner described. That was not the end of their troubles, by any means. In a rare intervention by the courts into football business, the two players appeared in Govan Magistrates Court on 28 December: Robert Buchanan, residing in Greenock, and a member of the Paisley Abercorn Football Club, and Alexander Lochhead, a member of the Third Lanark Club, were charged at Govan with fighting with each other during a football match, which was witnessed by 5,000 persons. The Magistrate said the public went to see football and not fights, and fined Buchanan 2 guineas, or thirty days, and Lochhead 30s, or twenty days. Presumably both players paid up rather than go to prison, but despite the shame and financial loss, it all ended well. Alex Lochhead (pictured above) was back in the Third Lanark side by the time they won the Scottish Cup in February 1889, defeating an upstart new club called Celtic in the final. And in April, having been forgiven by the SFA, he was capped for Scotland against Wales. Robert Buchanan also came good, and he too won a Scotland cap against Wales, scoring one of the goals in a 4-3 victory in 1891. In these days when the SFA boasts of its Fast Track Tribunals to deal swiftly with players who step out of line, it is worth remembering that in the Victorian era their officials would happily give up their Christmas dinner to see that justice was done.

While the association footballers took their time building up to a full international in 1872, their rugby counterparts beat them to it by a year and a half. Five Scottish club captains mooted the idea of a challenge to England to play an international under rugby rules, and together they penned a letter, dated 6 December 1870, laying down the gauntlet to the English.

we, as representing the football interests of Scotland, hereby challenge any team selected from the whole of England to play us a match, twenty-a-side

Published in Bell's Life, The Field and the Scotsman, the signatories were John Arthur (Glasgow Academicals), Benjamin Hall Blyth (Merchistonians), and Francis Moncreiff (Edinburgh Academicals), Alexander H Robertson (West of Scotland) and JH Oatts (St Salvator FC). The full letter is well known in rugby lore (you can read the full text here), as are four of the signatories: Arthur, Moncreiff and Robertson all took part in the match when it was played in March 1871, while Hall Blyth served as president of the fledgling Scottish Rugby Union. But who was Oatts? He has always been something of a mystery figure but now I can reveal his identity.John Henry Oatts was a student at St Andrews University, where he attended St Salvator College and captained the university football team, which played under rugby rules. He had entered the university in 1866 after a couple of years at Madras College, where his sister Harriett was also enrolled, but appears to have made slow progress. He reached second year in 1868, and third year in 1870-71, but does not appear in the roll for fourth year, which indicates he failed to graduate. However, if not suited for academia, he certainly thrived on the sporting atmosphere and among his contemporaries at school and university were several early rugby internationalists, including Alfred Clunies Ross, Robert Munro and Duncan Irvine. Born in 1850 in Jessore, Oatts was the only surviving son of an indigo planter in Bengal, where he spent his early years, and as soon as he had finished his studies at St Andrews he returned to the east to continue running the family estates called Porehatty and Hizrapore. He was an active volunteer in the Bengal Light Horse, married in 1885 and had four children, but their lifestyle came to an abrupt halt when the indigo trade collapsed in the 1890s following the invention of synthetic dyes. The estates went bankrupt and were sold off for a pittance in 1896 (although it was an uncle, James Tweedie, who appears to have borne the brunt of the financial misfortune). There was nothing for it but to return to Scotland. Oatts lived in Edinburgh for a few years, playing golf at Glencorse (where another sporting hero, Leslie Balfour Melville was also a member). He then moved south and spent his remaining years in Bedford, where he died in 1930.